ER death's sticker shock

Billing spotlights price disparity for the uninsured

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — For five frantic minutes, emergency room doctors at the University of California Davis Medical Center tried to revive Scott Hawkins.

Hospital officials said the 23-year-old beating victim was given the highest level of emergency care, with a phalanx of specialists and nurses at hand. His parents called the effort "heroic."

Five minutes later, doctors pronounced him dead.

Few question the extent to which doctors tried to save the student's life Oct. 21, but the amount billed for his emergency care has provoked outrage -- evidence, critics said, of health costs spun out of control.

The charge for those five minutes: $29,186.50 -- including a single-ticket item for $18,900.50, described on the itemized bill as "Trauma Rescue Service."

What's more, the Hawkins case may be a brutal example of the wide disparities in the sticker price for medical care provided to those with insurance and those without it.

"Part of the outrage is that those with the least are charged the most," said Anthony Wright of Health Access California, a consumer advocacy group.

The bill sent to Hawkins' family was an undiscounted "rack rate" that hospitals charge the uninsured.

Hawkins was mistakenly classified by the hospital as medically indigent. The bill should have been sent to his insurer, Kaiser Permanente, which would undoubtedly have paid thousands less.

A Kaiser spokeswoman said she could not discuss the Hawkins case because of privacy reasons. However, an agreement between Kaiser and UC Davis includes provisions for compensation for care.

UC Davis officials declined to discuss billing practices.

But Dr. Lynette Scherer, chief of trauma at UC Davis Medical Center, said the public simply doesn't grasp costs of a sophisticated emergency room and trauma center.

"If he survived, we wouldn't be even talking about the cost. We'd be saying: 'That was money well spent,'" Scherer said.

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$29,186.50

Hospital bill for five minutes of trauma care for Scott Hawkins, a 23-year-old California State University, Sacramento, student who was beaten to death